Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

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We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

That said... one part of TwitPic dude's blog statement rings very true. A lot of media are simply taking pictures and videos off the interwebs - be that TwitPic and YouTube or quasistevesdomain.com - and publish them in newspapers, in magazine articles, broadcast them on TV, etc.

I say "if you're lucky", because if you catch media doing this and try to point out that you retain the copyrights to that picture (not so on TwitPic anymore, not so for ages on YouTube, but certainly so on quasistevesdomain.com ) and would like to talk about their licensing the picture appropriately... oh boy. Unless you already have a lawyer ready that can spell things out for them directly, you're going to hear from their legal department on how you should be *glad* they used your picture/video, how it can bring you exposure, and how you should leverage that exposure to gain business. Just how that business should be gained when the next media company is also just going to use your picture/video is not entirely clear.

But, then again, I suppose that is very much in line with music / movie downloaders telling artists that they should be happy that they're downloading because it helps spread the word. Or something.

Most sites that accept user content make them the property of the site (Slashdot being a notable exception).

Not quite. Most sites that accept user content do so under terms that grant the site an irrevocable, perpetual, transferable and sublicensable right to reuse the material. A classic example of this is Amazon's Conditions of Use [amazon.com], which state in part:

If you do post content or submit material, and unless we indicate otherwise, you grant Amazon a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, and display such content throughout the world in any media.

You retain the copyright, and may make additional grants to other parties, but you cannot revoke the grant you made to the initial site.